The river was cold.
Taro realized that immediately, though he didn't know why it surprised him. The smoke had thickened the air; the wind had carried heat against his back; the forest behind them had been roaring like something alive. Cold did not belong to that world, he thought.
But it was there.
Kishi was already halfway across. She did not attempt to swim, but moved from stone to stone with a careful, almost impatient precision—half-step, half-hop, weight forward, then gone. Her boots seemed to find edges he couldn't even see.
He did not have room in his mind to admire it.
He was too busy trying not to fall.
The rocks were slick. The current pushed at his calves harder than it had looked from shore. His sheath dragged against his hip, its tip heavy with river water from where he had already dipped too low.
Stupid, he thought. Crossing a river with–
Then he realized again that the girl in front of him wore two.
His complaint died away into something like embarrassment.
He glanced back once.
The treeline was no longer a treeline. It flickered. Orange licked between trunks. Smoke rolled low over the surface of the water.
The wind shifted. Rustled through his hair. Warm.
It felt wrong before he realized why.
Then his foot slid.
Not far. Not dramatically. Just enough.
His balance went with it. Taro shifted half a step. He wasn't about to fall, not yet–
He saw Kishi begin to turn.
Then the river was everywhere.
Cold punched through him. It drove the breath from his chest so completely he didn't even feel himself gasp. His ankle struck stone. His cheek scraped something sharp. His mouth opened on instinct and filled.
The water wasn't deep.
That was worse.
His foot caught between two submerged rocks. When he twisted, it did not follow.
His head broke the surface for half a second. He dragged air in and coughed it out just as quickly.
Then he went under again.
The sheath was pulling him sideways. He clawed at his belt, fingers slipping. The current shoved at his ribs, his shoulder. His trapped leg burned.
He tried to plant his hands on the riverbed.
There was nothing solid to find. The thought sent alarm bells through his mind.
He twisted violently. Pain shot up his ankle. He screamed, and the sound disappeared into the water.
One hand broke the surface.
It flailed once.
Something caught it.
Kishi.
It had to be her. There was no one else.
Her grip closed around his wrist—hard, deliberate. Both hands. She leaned back over the current, boots braced against a rock, body angled almost horizontal as she countered his weight.
He felt the sudden wrench as his ankle tore free.
He did not feel the moment it came loose—only the absence of resistance.
His feet found the riverbed. He tried to stand and nearly went under again.
No–
Her grip tightened.
He coughed. Hard. Water came up from somewhere it shouldn't have been.
Then she was dragging him—not upward, but sideways, toward the nearest rock. His shoulder slammed into it. His ribs followed. Somehow he clung.
Then she let go. It was an instant before the movement registered to Taro.
It registered only when he nearly slid straight back into the water.
He shoved both palms against the stone and forced himself upright, water streaming from his sleeves, from his cloak, from the mouth of his sheath.
She did not say anything.
She did not look relieved.
She turned and continued.
He followed.
The last stretch was shorter, but it felt longer. He moved slower now, testing each step before committing weight. When his boots finally hit the opposite bank, the ground felt unreal beneath him.
He bent forward, hands on his knees. His lungs burned. His ankle throbbed in uneven pulses.
Kishi was already moving north along the riverbank.
He straightened and followed.
The smoke had thickened here. It drifted across the water in low sheets, catching in his throat. He glanced back again.
The forest was no longer flicker.
It was collapse.
A tree went down somewhere out of sight. He felt it through the soles of his boots more than he heard it.
He looked away.
They climbed a ridge that angled slightly upward from the bank. The rock jutted out over the water in a narrow ledge. Kishi scaled it in two smooth motions.
He dragged himself up behind her.
From there, he could see beyond the trees.
Norema.
The walls were faint through smoke. Pale. Smaller than he had imagined from this distance.
Movement dotted the fields. Lines. Barrels. People.
"They're there," he said hoarsely.
Kishi did not answer.
"They're working."
She remained still, eyes on the village.
"We could go to them."
The words felt thin as he spoke them.
"No."
He turned toward her.
"It's close."
"No."
The wind pressed smoke across the ridge. It blurred the edges of everything.
"The fire—"
"The fire is not why we can't."
Her eyes shifted to him.
He swallowed. His throat felt scraped raw.
"Then why?"
She looked back toward the gate. Toward the walls. Toward something he could not quite make out through the haze.
"You think they'll open it?" she asked.
He did not answer.
The smoke thinned for a moment. He could see the gates more clearly now. Open.
Or were they?
He could not tell.
"They'll let me in," he said.
"And me?"
The question did not rise. It stayed flat between them.
He hesitated.
The wind shifted again. Heat rolled up from behind.
She turned first.
"People live there, and people talk. We're going to the gorge."
"That's north."
"Yes."
"It's farther."
"Yes."
He stared at the walls one last time. At the fields outside, alive with movement.
Kishi was…wrong. She had to be.
He followed her anyway.
~~~
Genjo Masahiro emerged from the forest with ash in his hair and smoke in his lungs.
Enatsu slowed on his own when the trees thinned. Genjo did not urge him forward.
The land opened into fields stripped nearly bare. Earth showed in long, raw stretches where crops had stood. Villagers moved in uneven lines, passing buckets. Others tore up fence posts, dragged brush into controlled burns that smoked low and angry.
The gates stood open.
Genjo drew his horse to a halt at the rise overlooking the village.
He watched.
From this distance, the people looked smaller than the smoke that was beginning to slowly sift around them. Determined. Tight.
He rested his hand against Enatsu's neck. The horse's skin twitched beneath his palm.
If he rode forward, he would be seen.
If he were seen, he would be stopped.
He measured the wind. West to east. Steady.
This fire had not begun by accident.
He did not let the thought finish.
He turned Enatsu north.
The gorge would offer cover. And perhaps clarity.
He did not look back.
~~~
They reached the gorge in late afternoon.
The air was thinner there. Smoke still drifted overhead, but the wind caught it and pulled it upward along the stone walls.
Taro's clothes had dried unevenly. The fabric felt stiff where the river had soaked it. His ankle throbbed when he stepped wrong.
He didn't mention it. No reason to.
Though he knew his mother would have known what to do about it.
Kishi maintained distance. Six feet. Sometimes more. Taro didn't know why he measured the distance with his eyes, but he did anyway.
The gorge narrowed, then opened into a shallow cut in the rock. Not deep. Not hidden. Just enough to break the wind.
She stepped into it first. Looked once along the stone.
Then stepped back out.
He waited.
She gestured.
He entered.
The air inside was cool. Damp. It smelled of stone and old water.
He lowered himself carefully against the back wall, meaning only to rest for a moment. Kishi was still outside, he realized.
His head tipped back. Barely. He wasn't going to sleep–
Sleep didn't ask permission.
~~~
Mino Hirai drew his horse to a halt as the sky to the south shifted from blue to a muted gray-brown.
He had been watching it for a while now. As something very much like darkness filtered through the morning's air.
The men behind him slowed, hooves scraping against dry earth.
"That's smoke," one of them muttered.
Mino did not respond immediately. He studied the horizon. The cloud cover was uneven, dense in one direction.
"Our route is north," another rider said.
"Yes," Mino answered.
"And the smoke is south."
Mino adjusted his grip on the reins.
"Time is already compromised." His voice came out harder than it needed to be.
The fighter shifted in his saddle.
"Kish'tar Chikanari said–"
"Kish'tar Chikanari did not know there would be smoke," Mino replied. "Someone has to investigate."
Silence settled briefly between them. The wind carried a faint scent of burning–barely noticeable.
But there.
Mino turned his horse north.
"We adjust," he said. "Now."
The line behind him hesitated.
Only for an instant.